Bread Poha – Quick Meal fixer

There are times when I am not very enthusiastic about having a simple tomato cheese sandwich for breakfast, especially not in winters when the body requires warmth and soul requires some comforting, spicy, hot food.

Inertia of that sort always leaves one with boredom, laziness and half a bread loaf taking precious space in the fridge. With the sole purpose of finishing the bread loaf, I decided to give the poha a slight variation.

For those who have never had Poha before, it’s a traditional dish of Western part of India. Made with flattened rice flakes, it is light, spicy and very tempting. Read more here

Bread Poha- quick meal fixer

8-10 slices of bread. Depending on your preference, you can either cut it into bite size chunks or process them in the mixer and make bread crumbs.

1 onion – cut into slices

2 potato – peeled and cut into small pieces. Smaller pieces take lesser time to cook.

Any other vegetable of your choice (Bell peppers, carrots, peas, cauliflower etc.). For a quick meal, i would suggest taking vegetables which requires less cooking.

1 inch ginger – grated

1 garlic – chopped

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp dry mango powder (amchur)

chili powder as per taste

2 tsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice

About 2 tsp of water

for tempering

The spices can be chosen as per your taste buds. I usually take the mustard seed approach but u can go ahead with Cumin as well.

2 tsp vegetable oil

pinch of asafoetida (optional)

6-7 curry leaves

2 tsp peanuts

2 whole dried red chillies

Method

Take a broad pan and add the oil to it. Now put in the peanuts and roast till golden brown. Remove from the pan and keep aside.

Now to proceed with the tempering, add the asafoetida, mustard seeds, curry leaves and whole dried red chillies. Let the mustard crackle.

Now add the onions and fry. Once the onions get translucent, add in the potatoes and other vegetables you chose, salt, ginger, garlic, chili powder and fry on a high flame for a minute. Simmer the flame and cover the pan. Let it cook till the potatoes are done.

Now add the bread chunks, a little salt (only enough for bread chunks as you already put in salt required for the veggies), dry mango powder & garam masala. Sprinkle some water to help in creating a saucy base for the veggies to make it easy to mix the veggies with the bread chunks nicely.

Keep it on low flame for about 5 minutes. This will make the Bread in the Poha crunchy, slightly toasted, and let the spices set in well. Dash in the lemon juice.

Serve hot with peanuts.

Light and comforting, this combination of spices takes the bread eating to a complete new level !! Take a sip of the Indian Chai Latte and accompany that with a bite of this Bread Poha 🙂